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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384657">Painted Walls</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamnamedsilence/pseuds/Iamnamedsilence'>Iamnamedsilence</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ancient Elves (Dragon Age), Angst, Dreams, F/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sadness, Skyhold (Dragon Age), The Fade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:20:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>922</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384657</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamnamedsilence/pseuds/Iamnamedsilence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She had already seen similar paintings, she recalled. Yes, in Skyhold, in the base of the tower, depicting in a symbolic matter her achievements. It remained unfinished as Solas left.</p>
<p>Those paintings bear the mark of the same style. They are not like rock painting in the Dales and not like the mosaic in Dalish temples. They are elegant, stylized in a way unseen across Thedas. They are beautiful.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Painted Walls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lyenne touches the painting. The frescos have fresh, vivid colors and the golden light shining on them makes ie even brighter.</p>
<p>She had already seen similar paintings, she recalled. Yes, in Skyhold, in the base of the tower, depicting in a symbolic matter her achievements. It remained unfinished as Solas left.</p>
<p>Those paintings bear the mark of the same style. They are not like rock painting in the Dales and not like the mosaic in Dalish temples. They are elegant, stylized in a way unseen across Thedas. They are beautiful.</p>
<p>Lyenne touches the paint. It is dry, despite looking fresh. Behind it, Lyenne feels the coarse surface of plaster and stone. The wall is warm and it is a pleasant warmth that fills the body like lying in the summer sunlight.</p>
<p>The painting depicts people – her people, elves. Those elves are not Dalish or city elves, they came from the ancient times, form before Arlathan fell, Lyenne knows that somehow. This place is ancient and it belongs to those elves. There are warriors and scholars and kings, high, beautiful and radiant. Gods walk among them – even higher, even more imposing. Lyenne can recognize some of the attributes: of Andruil and Dirthamen, and Ghilain’nain, and Mythal… But she cannot recognize the scenes. Those are the ancient myths her people had forgotten. Stories from when the Creators walked among their children.</p>
<p>Lyenne walks, her hand on the wall, feeling the structure and warmth, watching the paintings.</p>
<p>She had seen a similar art style. The frescos and Skyhold, at the base of the tower, were painted like this, the same style, the same set of colors, as if the same hand created them. She feels piercing pain when she thinks about this.</p>
<p>She remembers, she was sitting on the desk, watching Solas painting. He was focused and looked like he ignored the fact he was watched. And Lyenne enjoyed watching his fingers at work. So slender and skillful, in magic and in painting. In her dreams, those hands had skills in other things as well, but in reality, she didn’t have much opportunity to touch them. She sat there and was imagining getting up and interrupting Solas in his occupation. Placing her hand on his paint-stained one. Pressing herself against his back…</p>
<p>She shivers. This memory is so vivid and the memory of the desire is vivid as well.</p>
<p>She is dreaming now. She is aware of it. It had rarely happened to her, but currently, she tries to learn how to travel through dreams, through the Fade. Stupid, stubborn girl, who wants to follow a lover who left her. But were they even lovers?</p>
<p>In dreams, but when it comes to Solas reality and dream blend together.</p>
<p>She goes farther, arches climbing above her head. They are lithe and they defy gravity and they climb and climb, impossibly, creating a tower that seems to be build of lace. It stays in place, where Skyhold’s main tower stands, she realizes.</p>
<p>This is Skyhold – Skyhold-that-was, the ancient elven fortress on the top of a mountain. The sky above the tower has a golden color, she had never seen in reality. But this is a dream – a dream of Skyhold-that-was.</p>
<p>Skyhold is old. The dwarven mason cannot date the oldest parts of the walls properly. It was an elven fortress once, then it belonged to Tevinter, then to Avvars, then to Orlesians and Fereldans, before it was forgotten and before the Inquisition claimed it. But it belonged to ancient elves first and they painted the walls with those frescoes.</p>
<p>It was beautiful then.</p>
<p>It is painful to watch this beauty, now forgotten. Solas’ unfinished fresco is just a shadow of it – even if painted with the same skill.</p>
<p>She stops in front of one more painting. There is a silhouette there, painted with few quick strokes, fewer details than the others, but this is on purpose. The silhouette's shadow rises behind it, taking a form of a wolf.</p>
<p>Lyenne withdraws her hand, then touches the wall again, fingers on the figure of the trickster god.</p>
<p>„Fen’Harel” she speaks.</p>
<p>The warmth that surrounded her fades. It is getting colder and darker in the room. The golden light shifts into the green.</p>
<p>She feels someone stands behind her.</p>
<p>You should not call The Wolf by his name.</p>
<p>But she did not call him by his name. This is not his name. She knows his name and she whispered it and screamed in her dreams. And it is a dream right now and she is aware. Is he aware of it? If she turns around if she looks him into the face, would he realize, she is here, she really is here, she knows?</p>
<p>She wants it. She wants things she cannot get, she could never get. Even if it is a dream. Could she trick the trickster, could she just pretend this dream is not a lucid one? Would he fall for it?</p>
<p>He would just go, she knows. That is just what he is. He would not use her – and he wouldn’t give her anything even if she consented. And she hates him for this.</p>
<p>And she still loves him.</p>
<p>Maybe she should turn around, but instead, she just wakes up and she is not sure, which one of them caused it: her of him.</p>
<p>Does it matter?</p>
<p>Her chamber on top of the tower is cold and dark. The fire went out and the morning did not come yet. The sky is grey and smells of snow.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The author is feedback starved and appreciates comments from the readers.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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